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A friend of MotorMavens, Damon Lavrinc over at Autoblog just posted photos of this AMAZING looking Subaru BRZ SuperGT race car, which just made its debut at the Tokyo Motor Show. The car will compete in the GT300 class, which means all cars in the class are limited to a power output of 300 horsepower. Read more...

If you’ve heard of AWOL, then you’re probably familiar with their well-produced, high production value webisodes exhibiting all aspects of motoring culture. If you haven’t heard of them, familiarize yourself. Their latest offering being passed around the internet is the short titled “Driftcember.” They covered a local grassroots event in West Virginia in a way that even a lot of higher end events aren’t, with chase helicopters. If that doesn’t impress you I’m not sure what will because everything is better when you add a helicopter. I really enjoyed this video because it gives a fresh look on something we’ve all seen before. Hopefully this will get other photographers and videographers to step up their creative game.

Check out awol.tv for more shorts and episodes of their automotive conquests.

Who says you have to put away your car for the winter? The guys at Angled Lines out in Minnesota make the best of their 5º weather in this fun-filled winter drift video. Thanks to Matt Blizel for sending me the link!

I’ll be the first to admit that I have a huge man-crush on Team Burst. Their insane driving inspires me to get crazier on the track and the skills these guys possess is outrageous. I’ve watched this video at least once a day since it’s release last week and I’m just now realizing I should share it with those of you who may not have seen it yet. This video from Stewy Bryant of inertiaMS is similar to, but instantly much better than most Meihan videos, due to the inclusion of MULTIPLE CAMERA ANGLES. I love watching raw footage of Meihan, but it’s great to see content from multiple perspectives.

Getting a design off the drawing board and into development can be an arduous task in the best of times but, after Ferrari's release of the 599 GTO, it may be quite some time before we see this beauty on the roads. So, if you're like me, you're asking "what has Ferrari planned for us in 2012 to replace the over-sized, grand tourer 612 Scaglietti?" Berlin-based designer Sasha Selipanov, AKA "The Angry Car Designer", has conjured up one fantastic design possibility for Big Brother's replacement.

This killer 612 GTO concept combines the sinuous lines of Ferrari's latest models with a nod to the famed 250 GTO. Just try to remember that the pictures you are now salivating over...are just renderings. Sorry to burst any newbie bubbles but any exposure to the renderings and concept cars of this industry should leave us all with one clear message: this may very well be the most beautiful car never to be built. After all, there is more than a slight chance that this design won't make it past the design room. However, despite the unfortunate realities of auto design and manufacturing, Selipanov continues to design drop dead gorgeous super cars. Read more...

While you await the arrival of the awesome Formula Drift coverage we’re about to unveil, check out this trailer for the new Night Moves video from the Canadian drift team, Drift Union. Edited by Shawn Browne, the driver of the purple FC3S, with great drifting from California to Canada, this video is sure to be a hit.

I’ve always had sort of a thing for wagons. They have a kind of comforting appeal that reminds us of our childhood – camping trips and such. This turbocharged Mercedes W123 wagon provides no such comfort. This thing is a beast!

Last night Antonio and a few of the MotorMavens crew were chillin’ with our friends from Apex’i and Lexus at a pretty sick party they were hosting. In anticipation of this weekend’s FD event and to celebrate Ryuji Miki’s new Lexus SC430, they showed this video – “Lexus Drift”.

So enjoy this video from Apex’i, Lexus and Kevin Lee. Don’t forget to check out our live feed tomorrow. Be on the look out for MotorMavens’ epic coverage of the event. Make sure you check out our video highlights. We’ll being using our ContourHDs, so you KNOW its going be SIIIIICK!

I first saw this slammed E38 BMW 740iL luxury sedan at the Bimmerfest in Pasadena this year. I've always loved the E38 body style, with its super long, wide chassis. However, I gotta admit... I was pretty impressed when I saw this particular E38 sedan. Maybe I just haven't been looking hard enough... but I've honestly never seen a lower E38 sedan than this one.

I love the way it looks from the back! The E38 has such a nice looking body style! In fact, I'd love to daily drive an E38 long wheelbase BMW myself if the car's gas consumption wasn't so damn outrageous. Screw it though... let's put all thoughts of practicality aside for just a moment, and just admire this 740iL from behind. What a great looking piece of ass. Classy too! Read more...

During the short while that I have been in the automotive sector of journalism, I've got to admit I have been fortunate enough to have seen some pretty crazy projects to say the least. However, after seeing this, I was absolutely stunned at the fact that any sane person would attempt something as monumental as this. I came across this forum thread as I was searching for some immaculate Porsche 356s one night. After numerous search engines and countless visits to Porsche related forums, a tagline in bold letters read "Porsche 356 with an Audi V8 on KustomCoachworks.com. I immediately got to thinking, "You can't be serious - how the heck would anyone tackle the enormous feat of shoving a 4.2L 360hp Audi V8 from an S5 into the back of this tiny 1950s Porsche 356? They must be mad!"

As I spent most of my time starring at thread pictures and scratching my head as to how he was going to accomplish this, it soon became evident that the person behind the build truly has a pair of big bullocks. Grant or "Crafty" as he is commonly known as on the forums, is currently residing in Hong Kong. I can't say I've seen anyone even attempt something of this magnitude stateside. I was truly amazed by how extensive this project was turning out. No surface on the car was left untouched, as Mr. Grant took on everything himself - from the widening of the shell in order to incorporate the massive V8, to the custom intake ducts that now take the place of the rear quarter windows. Read more...

Porsche has been at the forefront of hybrid technology development since long before any other car makers, which is why Porsche's unveiling of the GT3R Hybrid racecar at the Geneva Auto Show this past month (along with its announcement of the car's participation in the 24H Nurburgring race this May) came as no surprise to me.

While researching this new GT3R Hybrid, I stumbled upon some interesting facts. For example, this isn’t the first time that Porsche has toyed with "green" technology. Over a hundred years ago, Porsche's founder (Ferdinand Porsche), began his automotive career by making electric hubs that were later put into the wheels of horse carriages. In 1900, Porsche unveiled his hub motor design at the World’s Fair in Paris. Most people thought at the time that an electric driven carriage would be an epic fail. (But they didn't say it in those exact words, LOL) Little did they know that what Mr. Porsche was doing would become a precursor to another "green" technology in a century or so. Read more...

I was recently on the VWVortex Forum clicking through the classifieds and searching for some parts for my broken Mk2 GTI... that's when I stumbled across this beautiful 2008 Volkswagen Passat CC from Alvin, Texas.

The first thing I did was pick up my jaw and wipe away the drool. I know, as any other VW/Audi owner would, that the Bentley rims are normally considered expensive and a bit overdone, but not in this case! In this particular instance, they shed new light on just how aggressive the CC can look on mono block wheels.

For the readers out there that think this might be Photoshopped, think again - it’s the real deal. These pictures of the CC drew me in and made me want to find more information about the owner. However, finding the owner of this ride was more difficult than I expected. After days of posting on forums and other online outlets (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, etc.), I was beginning to give up hope... but then I received an email from the owner, so after all of the suspense of whether I'd find him or not, I thought I'd let him tell his own story with just a little help from me. Read more...

The sound of the full-throttle beast in this video brings a smile to my face every time I watch this.

This Mercedes Benz 190E is powered by a Judd 3.5L V8 F1 engine (Ex Brabham F1 car from the early 90′s). It is a race car which was used in the French Super Touring Car Championship and built after FIA changed their rules and regulations on painted bodies. (I know, that millimeter of paint does add weight, especially when lead was one of the key ingredients.) The power that this behemoth of a car made back in the early 1990s, when most cars didn’t even break the 200hp mark was astonishing. This DTM Benz 190E made an amazing 564 horsepower at a screaming 9900rpm, and coupled with a Hewland 6-speed sequential gearbox, doing 0-62mph only took 2.7 seconds! Talk about knocking you back in your seat!

Unfortunately, this car never made it to a racing series on the track, as it was only built for show purposes and exhibitions (ie: Goodwood Festival of Speed). Believe me, you won’t be disappointed by this short 2 minute video. I may warn you, watch it at your own risk: side effects may include, anxiety, uneasiness, stomach cramps, and blurred vision. Please turn your speakers way up for this, as just the sound of the 190E screaming past at full throttle is like a symphony written by the best composer in the world. Enjoy!

This past weekend was quite a busy one in the world of grassroots drifting. Up in the Pacific Northwest, our boys Yoshi Shindo and Lucas Perez were busy with the Evergreen Drift season opener, as seen in their previous post.

In the Pacific Southwest, many dedicated grassroots drifters made the trek to the very first installment of the Vegas Pro Am Series. I was sick this weekend, and couldn't make it out, but thankfully, I received a link to some event photos onSAV Photo's Flickr page from Sin City local Nick Dizon. Many people know Nick as one of the main movers and shakers of the VegasDrift community, but the Vegas Pro Am brought out drivers from all sorts of places - from Arizona to Pennsylvania, all the way to Canada! Read more...

Okay. So apparently, this week, I’ve been on a bit of a European/DTM kick. We see so many Japanese cars all the time on Motor Mavens, I thought it would be kinda cool to mix it up a bit and shine a bit of light on some of the awesome race cars that have been famous in the European motorsports scenes for quite some time.

Last time I was in London, I saw this awesome die cast vintage Mercedes Benz race car (it was 1/43 scale, if I remember correctly…), and through the technology of Tumblr, I just happened across these photos of this awesome AMG Benz, which originally appear on this Vintage Photo page on LiveJournal. I don’t know enough about these cars (if one of our readers knows a lot about this subject, please write us!), but I love them. A lot. They just look so cool; big bodied vintage luxury cars going at it with smaller, sportier coupes… SO DAMN COOL. (more…)

Since our new Eurofiend contributor (Tamer Omran) got me thinking about the DTM racing series in Germany, I thought I’d post up this cool photo I found on Tumblr. I believe it was originally posted by Gearheads and Monkeywrenches. This here is a gorgeous white DTM Mercedes AMG, driven by a female driver by the name of Susie Stoddart. (more…)

Wow, this has got to be one of the best videos i have ever seen on YouTube. I just happened to stumble upon this 2009 DTM recap video, as I’ve been really hooked on DTM cars lately.

For those of you not really familiar with DTM, heres some history behind it. The DTM Series (or Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft, which translated, means German Touring Car Masters) started out in 1984 and was only exclusive to Germany. In the early years, race fans found DTM racing very exciting, due to the fender-to-fender action and violent crashes. Unfortunately, the original DTM series came to an abrupt halt after the 1996 season… so Thank God the series was revived in 2000.

In my opinion as a Euro-car nut, I don’t think any race series even compares to DTM, but I’ll let you be the judge of that. This video is from last year, but it’s still incredibly exciting to watch. Watching the Mercedes AMG C-class and the Audi A4 duke it out… I just don’t think it gets much better than this.

Man. I’m not quite sure what to say. I was forwarded this link from a friend of mine, who basically said, “dude, you gotta read this. This article bashes slammed cars, negative offset, and the usage of roof racks and rusted body parts. It even bashes websites that promote that style (specifically naming HellaFlush), Miata.net and other forums.”

At first, I thought, “That sucks, but whatever… people talk shit on the internet all the time just to spike up their traffic or make a name for themselves.” But then I re-read the email. It talks shit about Corollas?! More specifically, it refers to our beloved AE86 Corollas (other cars are on the list too) as “irredeemable garbage.” Wow. That’s a pretty bold statement.

For most of the people I’ve been hanging out with for the past 10 years, talking shit about a person’s car is worse than talking shit about a person’s family. In many circles, those are fighting words. While I like to think that I’ve grown up a bit, and I like to think it doesn’t bother me when people disparage the cars I have been passionate about for the past decade… I think, perhaps, I haven’t grown up. I sure haven’t “grown out of it” – I haven’t grown out of my passion for AE86s; for negative offset wheels; for demon camber; for low stanced cars; for stretched tires… hell no. If anything, I’ve become happy that people are embracing this style, and seeing people all over the world build cars of this type is only adding fuel to the fire.

Perhaps the most offensive statement made by this article is the one that belittles the young demographic of car enthusiasts. It says “Setting up a car for drifting is usually ass-backwards to what actually makes a car handle. Still, it has managed to permeate the collective consciousness of young car enthusiasts, who are unaware that buying coilovers with absurdly stiff springs doesn’t actually make a car handle well, but rather masks a the deficiencies of a poorly designed car.” Come on now. Young car enthusiasts are unaware of what they’re doing? Last time I checked, MOST people (note that I didn’t say ALL, but MOST) involved with drifting were modifying their cars with a purpose and a mission.

While I was cruising the Bimmerforums website last night, I came across this particular E39 BMW 5 Series sedan that really impressed me. This car was built by a Bay Area Bimmer owner that goes by the screen name of PavelK313. This E39 just looks right. Pavel didn’t even need to modify the bumpers, mirrors and all that jazz, because he concentrated his efforts on what really matters – the STANCE.

There was actually a lot of debate on the Bimmerforums about his low stance, his stretched tires, etc… can you believe that some people actually DIDN’T like it?! I laughed out loud when I read some comments from Bimmer owners that mentioned the same old things that anti-tire-stretch people say when they see outstanding feats of mathematics like this one. “I hate stretched tires. They make your classy car look ghetto, like a lowrider Impala! Tire stretch is stupid because it lessens your contact patch with the ground!” Oh, and let’s not forget, my absolute favorite… “I hope you like curb rashed lips on your wheels, because that’s what you’re gonna get if you stretch your tires!” LOL (more…)

When I’m bored at work, I constantly listen to MP3s and surf the web. The other day, I decided to look at Volkswagen related videos because I was interested in finding more cars that looked similar to my friend Zach’s Well Dunn Passat.

I stumbled across this older video from Wagenwerks Productions, that featureda Volkswagen Jetta GLI owned by a guy named Brandon Nero. I think this video is sick – the music went well with the feel of the video. The Jetta is so simple and clean, yet it’s so aggressive! I gotta hand it to Brandon Nero, he made one dope looking Jetta! I obviously love the car’s super low stance, and the fitment of the BBS mesh wheels? Perfect.

While replaying the video about 4-5 times, I read the comments on the Wagenwerks Vimeo account and saw that they used roller blades to get all the moving camera shots! No fancy rigs or easy dollies used here! I can go on for days about how good this video is, but I think I’ll just shut up and let you watch. Awesome, right?

Okay… this is a super old video, but since I just posted my story about how I felt the first time I ever saw the legendary Best Motoring Volume 41, I figured I should post the video up on the site. To me, this video is totally the shit… it’s a classic that I must have watched about a thousand times, but I still remember how this video made me feel the first time I ever saw it. It was inspiring, to say the very least. And the very first time I ever drove Ebisu Circuit‘s East Course, it immediately brought me back to the first time I watched this video, and the sound that the naturally aspirated blacktop 20 valve AE111 4AG engine made at full throttle as Keiichi drove his white TRD AE86 at Ebisu.

I’m sure that everyone must have a favorite movie or CD that they’ve listened to countless times… Inputs like this become engrained into your head; they eventually become a part of your permanent memory, and a part of who you are as a person. For me, these types of inputs include things like the Illmatic album from Nas, the Low End Theory album from A Tribe Called Quest, the Do You Want More album from The Roots, the Legend album from Bob Marley, and the Best Motoring Video, Volume 41. If you have a favorite book, video, movie, or CD, please share it…

For those who are fascinated with bosozoku style and other aspects of Japanese underground car culture, I thought I’d post up this video clip. I actually watched part of this movie at my friend’s house in Japan a few years back, but it was only recently (on the Bosozoku Style website) that I discovered that someone had actually uploaded the video to Youtube.

This video doesn’t feature outstanding driving or anything… and ALL the cars inside aren’t necessarily cool, although you will find a few pretty nice gems mixed in with the street rubble. What kinds of bosozoku cars can you point out? I saw some pretty interesting non traditional cars, like the AW11 MR2 at the beginning of the movie, as well as the normal bosozoku fare, like Toyota Crowns and Nissan Skylines.

Just think – this movie was released way back in 1987! Sheesh, I was just a kid listening to Eric B & Rakim and LL Cool J back then… I wasn’t even into cars yet!

Fun video to watch! Just don’t get too offended by what happens to the hakosuka at the end…

Guess who got some new kicks? This is Henry Nguyen‘s shakotan S12 200SX sure is breaking hearts with its shiny new shoes. Forget those played out Bapes, kid… it’s all about the classic Japanese styling of Speed Star Wheels.

I really gotta give major props to Taro and the GT Channel crew! This is the very first video I’ve ever seen that shows the details of the G’s Toyota FT86 G Sports Concept that debuted at this year’s Tokyo Auto Salon. I was pretty sad that I wasn’t able to make it at first, because when I searched the web, I saw a cornucopia of wack photos of the car (you may laugh at my usage of the word cornucopia, but hey, it’s better than saying a sh!t ton of wack photos)… but this video actually does the car justice.

We can finally see the details, all close and personal! Domo arigatou gozaimashita to the GT Channel crew for giving us the inside look, and posting up the video so quickly! Otsukare sama deshita! Great job.

What I want to know now is… how many AE86ers will be lining up at the Toyota dealerships to buy an FT86 now?

Me personally, I’m not too stoked on the fact that it’ll be coming out with a Subaru boxer engine in it… I wish it had a high revving engine with a Toyota/Yamaha twincam G head, to keep it true to the feel of a real AE86… Either way, I can’t wait to test drive one to see if it really feels like one of the AE86s in my collection or if it just feels like some sort of FR WRX. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Please voice your opinion on the FT86… I’m curious to see what our readers think!